School funding changes could lead to big aid gains, losses in Burlington County

David Levinsky @davidlevinskyKelly Kultys @kellykultys

Wednesday

Apr 25, 2018 at 6:00 AM

A total of 25 school districts in Burlington County would receive aid increases if the school funding formula is fully funded and enrollment caps and adjustment aid are eliminated. A total of 15 districts in the county would eventually lose aid.

New Jersey lawmakers found out this week how much state aid schools in their legislative districts might eventually receive or lose if Gov. Phil Murphy goes along with proposals to “modernize” the state’s school funding formula.

The numbers released by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services reveal there would be significant gains and losses among Burlington County’s public school districts from the proposed changes, which include lifting the enrollment growth caps that have limited year-to-year increases in aid for fast growing districts and redistributing so-called “adjustment aid” given to school districts that have experienced enrollment losses.

According to the OLS numbers, a total of 25 school districts in Burlington County would receive aid increases if the school funding formula is fully funded and enrollment caps and adjustment aid are eliminated. A total of 15 districts in the county would eventually lose aid.

Among the increases, Maple Shade could eventually see $8.5 million more in aid, a 92.5 percent increase than the $9.1 million in formula aid the district now receives. Delran would receive $11.8 million in additional aid, up 94 percent, and Bordentown Regional could receive $5.81 million more, up 70 percent.

Chesterfield, which has become the poster child for underfunded school districts, stands to receive $3.32 million more aid, a more than 400 percent increase from the district’s $821,188 aid for the current 2018 fiscal year.

Among the Burlington County districts that might eventually lose aid under the proposed changes are Pemberton Township, which stands to lose some $25 million or 31 percent of its existing aid, and Evesham, which could lose some $8.2 million, a 60 percent reduction.

Lenape Regional, which is the county’s largest school district, stands to lose $7.15 million, a 25 percent reduction, and Tabernacle could lose $2.6 million, a nearly 50 percent cut.

The release of the numbers comes amid negotiations between Murphy and legislative leaders surrounding school funding for the upcoming 2019 fiscal year and changes to the district-by-district aid amounts the administration already announced last month after unveiling his proposed $37.4 billion state budget.

While Murphy’s budget calls for an additional $283.6 million in formula aid that increases funding to 94 percent of school districts, groups of parents and school officials from districts like Chesterfield, Delran and Bordentown Regional in Burlington County, Cherry Hill in Camden County and Kingsway Regional in Gloucester County have complained that his plan continues to shortchange their districts and others that have been drastically underfunded for most of the last decade despite their rising enrollment. They argue that other districts with shrinking enrollment continue to receive more money than what the state’s funding formula prescribes.

The formula, which was created and signed into law in 2008, distributes aid to public school districts based largely on their enrollment, wealth and populations of impoverished and special needs students.

New Jersey lawmakers have also demanded that Murphy agree to changes in the aid awards to address the discrepancies. Murphy and his acting education commissioner, Lamont Repollet, have said they are willing to work with the Legislature to make changes, which Repollet described as “modernizing” the funding formula.

The changes are expected to focus on two components of the 2008 law that were intended to smooth the transition to the new formula. The first was enrollment caps, which limits rapidly growing districts to no more than a 20 percent increase each year, and adjustment aid, which is generally awarded to districts with shrinking enrollment to ensure their state aid does not fall below the sum they received before the formula was created.

Both the caps and adjustment aid were intended to be phased out after the initial years the formula was implemented, but both have remained in place, leading to funding discrepancies among school districts. Aside from the first year of implementation in 2009, the state has never had enough money to fully fund the formula to provide districts with the full aid prescribed, even with the enrollment caps in place.

Murphy made funding the formula a key component of his successful gubernatorial campaign, arguing that doing so would help address the state’s notoriously high property taxes, which are largely driven by school district budgets. The additional $283.6 million in formula he proposed was billed as the first installment of a four-year ramp up to full funding, which Murphy’s administration pegged at around $9.2 billion in aid for the state’s close to 600 school districts.

Murphy’s initial proposal includes the enrollment caps and adjustment aid, which his administration has described as statutorily apart of the school funding law, but he has said he is willing to make changes focused on both the enrollment caps and adjustment aid.

The loss of adjustment aid is what will cause some school districts with shrinking enrollment to lose aid, while the elimination of the enrollment caps will prescribe large increases districts like Chesterfield that have rapidly grown.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd of West Deptford, who helped negotiate an increase in funding and small redistribution of adjustment aid last year, has called for aid to be distributed without enrollment caps and for adjustment aid to be redistributed over a five-year period, however, the time period of the phase out is believed to be a subject of the ongoing negotiations.

Even with the redistribution of adjustment aid, the loss of the enrollment caps is expected to raise the price tag for funding the formula to $9.7 billion, about $500 million more than what would be required to fund the formula with adjustment aid and caps in place and about $1.2 billion more than the total formula aid Murphy budgeted for the 2019 fiscal year.

The governor’s budget calls for the state to raise revenues for the increased school aid and other spending by increasing the state’s highest income tax rate from 8.97 to 10.75 percent on earnings over $1 million and by raising the sales tax to 7 percent from its current 6.625 percent rate. It also includes extending the sales tax to more online sales, Airbnb rentals, and trips on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, as well as closing loopholes used by large corporations and hedge funds to dodge state taxes.

Sweeney has said those tax increases should be a “last resort” and that lawmakers need to focus on possible spending decreases and other efficiencies first.

“Change has to happen in New Jersey, and it’s not going to happen by just raising taxes,” Sweeney said last month during a radio interview. “We have to focus on the cost of government, not just the revenue side.”

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Follow Us

Advertise

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
Burlington County Times ~ 116 Burrs Rd., Suite B, Westampton, NJ 08060 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service